


As Safe as Houses

by miss_nettles_wife



Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Bullying, M/M, small age difference, very very mild period typical homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 10:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15022607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_nettles_wife/pseuds/miss_nettles_wife
Summary: Marshall gets a late night visitor. (Let the Right One in AU)





	As Safe as Houses

**Author's Note:**

> its been a hot minute since I wrote a marshall/dash fic hasnt it? Ive been really into vampires and LTROI lately, its such a good film so naturally, AUs, AUs everywhere. regarding Dash's age: I read somewhere he was meant to be an 'older teen' and that JM was 17 at the time, so I compromised and cast Dash as 16 for the purpose of this fic. Marshall is still 13-going-on-14 if this age difference bothers you should probably read something else. But like, it's a vampire fic so hes not even 16 he like 216 so...Make your own choices my friends. 
> 
> Anyway disclaimer aside, let me know if you liked it (and would be interested in more vampire!Dash) :-)

The wind was cold on a night like tonight. It whipped like a man possessed and drove its way in through the cracks in the sealant that frosted the edges of Marshall’s window. Inside, the house was warm enough. Marshall had built himself a nest of blankets and pillows to sleep in, and had double socked his feet. It was unusually cold this year, not that he would have any previous years to compare it to.

He should be asleep, but he’s not. He can his father’s snoring distantly, and even Syndi has hung up her CD player for the evening. Marshall couldn’t sleep even if he wanted to. It’s not the cold that kept him awake, though that would be an easier explanation. He turned over onto his back and looked up at the plain white ceiling above his bed. Back home in Jersey, they had put glow in the dark stars up there in the shape of his fathers' favorite constellations when he was a baby. When he’d grown up, he hadn’t taken the time to get rid of them. The adhesive would occasionally separate from the bit of plastic and it would fall in the night. Shooting stars of the more domestic kind.

Janet Donner was back at school today. He didn’t understand her; she always ran away. She always came back. If you could leave Eerie, why wouldn’t you?” He knows why, Janet would never leave her sister, even if she really wanted to go, she’d never stay gone unless Stacy was with her. Marshall doesn’t think Syndi would come back for him, unless she really had to. He didn’t know where Janet went when she ran, but he liked to imagine that it was to another dimension, or perhaps another town. Somewhere that she could have all the crazy adventure she deserved.

He hasn't spoken to Simon in a couple of days. He's been trying. As far as he knows, he's Simon's only friend outside of his overprotective parents who have limited his contact with almost anyone. They used to be proper physical friends but they aren’t since the Holmes’s heard Marshall’s dad take the lords name in vain. Marshall’s flashlight is sitting abandoned with his Morse code book by the window that faced Simons. He’s tried a few times now to get Simon’s attention but to no avail. He’s seen figures moving inside the house, and he’s seen Simon out in the front yard but he’s been ignored.

Dimmerdale hit him today. Real hard. He was pretty lucky he didn't lose a tooth, in his opinion. He'd fallen and scraped his chin on the pavement. They hadn't hit him while he was down, though they wanted to. They would have if the teacher hadn't come along and seen him. He was dead at school tomorrow, but there was nothing to be done about that right now.

He rolled over again so that he could sandwich his pillow between his arm and his ear. His mother thought that the move to Eerie would make things easier. It hasn't. It's been Hell if he believes in that malarkey. He might, he isn't sure yet. Seems like lately, he's not sure about a lot of things. He used to be sure. Or maybe he just thinks that he used to be surer and he's actually as sure as he always was.

He heard a gentle tapping at his window. He ignored it. The tapping got harder.

And then there was Dash. Marshall still didn’t know what to think of him. Most of the time, he thought he liked Dash, but it could also be that he was just lonely. Dash has never come to see him at home before. Mostly it was Marshall who saw him when he was out at night, carrying his camera and looking for things to take pictures of. Weird lights in the sky, extremely tall men, whatever kind of person you would call someone who wore denim socks.

As far as he knew, Dash didn’t have any parents. He lived outside the main part of town and he was generally in want of a shower or two. Or three. He smelt weird. Marshall has only ever been to one funeral, and that was what he smelt like. He was the only person in town who didn’t seem to think Marshall was too weird to talk too. He felt a bit bad about the shower thing, all of a sudden.

"Marshall!" He rolled over and saw Dash sitting on the window sill like a crow sitting on top of the letterbox. Adjusting to the sight of him, Marshall noticed that Dash's chin was coated in a thick second skin of tacky blood. He walked over. Dash hesitated there, crouched on the sill in his oversized black coat. His waistcoat is buttoned up for once.

“Can I come in?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Whose blood is that?” Marshall asked. Dash didn’t answer. “Whose blood is that?” He repeated.

“Mister Chaney’s.”

Mister Chaney was the local werewolf. Or he actually wasn’t, he just lived with Dash on the edge of town and Marshall had only ever seen him by the light of the moon. Werewolves were a lot more exciting.

“Why?” Again, Dash didn’t respond. So Marshall went back into the room, expecting Dash to follow him to where it was warm. Dash didn’t. He waited by the window, he had snow in his hair, shoulders and caught in his eyelashes like little white mascara spiders. His hair looked very white outside in the snow. He liked that, actually.  He accepted he might not be getting anything more from Dash for the moment, he was just sort of like that. “Are you coming?”

“You have to let me in.”

“The window is already open.”

“You have to tell me I can come in.”

“You can come in.” Dash crossed the threshold into the room and closed the window behind him. He started to shrug out of his snowy clothes, dropping them into heaps by his feet until he was wearing only his pants and thin plain singlet. He toed his pants off in the middle of the room as he walked, his boxers and singlet were both stained with dark brown blotches that were probably blood.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Guess I forgot how.”

Marshall had already climbed back into the warm bubble of his bed, rubbing his socked feet together under the blankets. Dash was looking at the handful of things Marshall had out on display. Most of his things were still in boxes. He’d never bothered to unpack, thinking his parents would realize their massive mistake and take him back to Jersey. They hadn’t yet.

After a few moments of standing and observing, Dash crossed the room and then slid under the blankets. He was ice cold. That was just how he was. Marshall had expected Dash to top and tail or something but he actually slid so that his face was right up in Marshalls. He smelt like blood and ash. They lay still and quiet, Marshall’s breathing was the only noise in the whole space. The other noises in the house are still probably there but Marshall can’t be bothered to hear them when he’s too busy listening to the fact that Dash isn’t really making any noises at all.

"You're so cold," Marshall mumbled, pulling his feet away from Dash's damp ones. Dash responded by putting his feet out further and running them along Marshall's legs just to annoy him. He rolled further away from him and delivered a small kick, making him stop. They lay still again, Dash apparently comfortable. He has left a small smear of blood on Marshall's neck but it's nothing that won't wash off.

It will probably be a snow day tomorrow, he thought. In Jersey, the snow never looked so white or beautiful. He was struck by the urge to run out into the snow in nothing but his boxer shorts but wisely decided against it. Dash reached up to wipe his chin, but the blood was tacky and it didn’t really help.

“Are you a vampire, Dash?” Marshall asked, his voice sounded almost echo-ey in the still room.

“I need blood to live, yeah.” He sounded like how soda that’s been open for a few hours tastes. Marshall had expected to be madder, but he’s not. It’s what all his research on weirdness has turned up. Out of the most common symptoms of vampirism, Dash had at least four of them. He had a file on Dash. He had a file on everyone. His note-taking. Like Steve who died. (or got his braces removed and became a theatre kid.) Todd who turned into a metalhead overnight (and doesn't talk to Marshall anymore now he has his new friends)

 

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.” Pause, “But I’ve been sixteen for a long time.” Another tick on the vampirism list.

“What happened to Mr. Chaney? I thought you liked him." Dash screwed up his face in a way that indicated he wasn't about, to tell the truth. Like when you're not hungry but feel like you should eat because it's lunchtime and nothing in the kitchen is appealing.

“He asked me to stop seeing you.”

"And that's why you…?" Dash's eyes darted left to right like he was looking for an escape, Marshall decided not to push any harder. "You don't have to talk about it. I was just…Wondering."

"Wonder about something else," Dash said, though he presses himself closer. His cheek is ice cold on Marshall's shoulder but he doesn’t really mind that either.

“Okay. I was wondering, do you want to go steady?”

“What’s going steady?” Marshall tried to think up an eighties reference to going steady but couldn’t on such short notice.

“It’s like being more than friends but not married yet. You know. Boyfriends.”

"Oh," Dash replied.  "So things would be the same, but we could kiss now.” 

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want things to change.”

“They don’t have to.”

“Are thirteen-year-olds allowed to date sixteen-year-olds?”

“I guess so.”

“Are you allowed to date a boy?”

The silence is deafening. He knew what people thought about boys who liked other boys, he wasn’t an idiot. He tried to believe that his parents wouldn’t mind, that they’d be happier if he finally started settling in and making any type of friend.

“I think so.”  He answered finally.

“And you’re sure that things won’t have to change?”

“Yeah.”

He heard his mother shifting in the next room and they both stopped talking to listen to her settle. Dash lifted one hand and slid his fingers in between Marshalls. His hands are cold, except for the marks on the back which he can just brush with his fingertips, which are hot.

“If we’re going steady now, can I hurt those boys who hurt you back?”

“Dimmesdale?”

“And his little lackeys.”

"Nick and Eddie," Marshall said, moving his jaw in a circle and feeling the sting of the wound on his chin as it reopened a little. "No."  Dash looked like he wanted to speak, but he didn't. Instead, he huffed and used Marshall's pajama shirt to wipe some more tacky blood off his chin. Marshall rolled his eyes and settled down to try and get some sleep.

“Why do you let them do that?”

“What am I going to do?”

“Fight back.”

“How? There’s three of them, one of me.”

“I could fight.”

“I already told you no.” He said, “I want to go to sleep.” Dash obliged and stopped talking about it. When Marshall fell asleep he was still awake. He thought he heard him whisper something about pay.

 


End file.
